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Shalala: Obamacare rollout 'a debacle'

In a news conference Thursday after a meeting with White House officials, the top four Democrats said they won’t apologize for that promise, instead defending the language of the Affordable Care Act — their prized legislative achievement.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who shepherded Obamacare through the House as speaker, said Obama was “very gracious” in making that apology but that the president’s words – in the context of the law – were “absolutely” precise.

“There’s nothing in the Affordable Care Act that says that your insurance company should cancel you,” she told reporters. “That’s not what the Affordable Care Act is about. It simply didn’t happen.”

She continued that she did not make a similar statement to her constituents, noting that she “would have if I ever met anybody that liked his or her plan, but that was not my experience.”

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said at the time the statement was made, it was accurate. The problems with the messaging came when people interpreted Obama’s comments “expansively.”

“You understand that if you had a policy on the day that this bill was adopted, you got to keep it,” Hoyer said. “Now, you didn’t get to keep it if the insurance companies didn’t want to offer it to you.”

“When [consumers] become aware of what they did not have, I don’t think there’s anything to apologize for,” added South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn, the third-ranking House Democrat.